Deeplinks Blog posts about Bloggers' Rights

If, just a few short decades ago, someone had proposed that the Internet would be instrumental in the promotion and maintenance of human rights around the world, their proposal would have been met with skepticism. And yet, examples of Internet users campaigning for human rights abound: From the Take Back the Tech campaign to end violence against women to the global response to speech-limiting bills like SOPA and PIPA and to new projects like WeFightCensorship.org, the role of the Internet in the promotion of human rights is growing.

UPDATE November 22, 2012: According to news reports this morning, Eskinder Nega's appeal has been postponed until December 19th. A lawyer for another defendant noted: "As they [the Court] scrutinized our ground of appeal they found so many legal and factual irregularities." Judge Dagne Melaku has stated that the Court needs several weeks to review the "bulky" case file of evidence.

In July, EFF called for the immediate release of open source developer and Creative Commons volunteer Bassel Khartabil, who had been detained in Syria since March 12, 2012 as part of a wave of arrests made in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. We felt that the situation was especially urgent in light of a recent Human Rights Watch report documenting the use of torture in 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies. Now it appears that our concerns were well-founded.

Press freedom in Sri Lanka has come under further attack over the course of the past month. On June 29, the Criminal Investigation Department’s Colombo Crime Division raided the office shared by news websites Sri Lanka Mirror and Sri Lanka X News. The latter website is widely known as the official journalistic outlet of the United National Party (UNP), which is the main opposition party against the ruling coalition, United People’s Freedom Alliance. Authorities arrested nine journalists and confiscated much of both websites’ computer equipment for “propagating false and unethical news on Sri Lanka.”

This weekend, EFF learned that Bassel Khartabil, a longtime member of the open source software community and Creative Commons volunteer, has been detained in Syria since March 12, 2012, as part of a wave of arrests made in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. For months, Bassel’s family has had no knowledge of his whereabouts or the reason for his arrest. Only recently have they heard from previous detainees at Kafar Sousa that he is being held at this location. This news is especially alarming in light of a recent Human Rights Watch report documenting the use of torture in 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies.